Charlie's Blog

It's been waaay too long...

2010-07-20T23:51:51-07:00

since the last post dating 4.16.2008! Alot has happened since Thundercats: Thor, return to Gatchman, several live action films including "Akira", "Suckerpunch," "Captain Nemo", along with some other game gigs, then back to Thor and Captain American, now onto Avengers! man! Charlie has been busy, to say the least, which is why I am writing on his behalf as his assistant for now (he promised to write whenever he can, though, so stay tuned!)

Soon, I'll post some of his newer (and some older) images here, but for now, gotta let you in on the latest (and this may simply be the quickest way to get a hold of him!) -- Charlie will be signing at the Comic-Con 2010 in San Diego with director Kenneth Branagh and Chris Hemsworth on an early concept piece for Thor!

It will be this Saturday, July 24th

---the Thor image has been released online in numerous sites. This is one of them:

http://io9.com/5592096/marvel-releases-glorious-concept-art-posters-of-captain-america-and-thor

stay tune..., Vince

GOW2 and After

2008-04-16T12:51:19-07:00

Okay, This is the second time I'm writing this entry. The first one seemed to only post up a title! Trying to lure my memory of this post out from the fuzzy RAM in my head...not getting much. Let's see...the last time I talked about my projects was the very first post on God of War. So, I guess this'll be a little bit of an up date on my work life.

After God of War 1, I had been at Sony for almost four years, and it seemed like a good time to do something else. However, I decided to take on another role for one more installment as "Visual Development Director". It was enticing, since Cory Barlog was going to direct the sequel, and I already had a great experience with him when he was animating. He seemed like a great fit for that role---seemed like another round of God of War could be a refreshing experience. Plus, besides Scott Seeto and Cecil Kim, who were key concept artists on God of War 1, I would get to form the rest of the concept team, adding on Andy Park, Dwayne Turner, Ryan Meinerding, and Erik Sanjuan (whom I got to borrow from the modeling team during our busiest phase). The team had lots of talent, but most importantly, were great to work with, and they were also patient with me as their art director. It was a group that you looked forward to working with on a Monday morning.

I learned a lot taking on this role. It was my first time art directing the look of a game, and Cory's first time directing the game, so there were definitely growing pains. I think one of the most challenging parts was managing a team of friends, trying to see how much to direct, versus how much to trust their own experience, and all the while trying to shield them from as much politics as possible. The other end was the politics of being on the managing staff. I worked very closely with Cory, trying to understand his creative process as much as possible. It was an adventure adjusting to Cory and trying to get the rest of the concept art team to adjust with me...of course, Cory had to adjust to the whole team, along with the rest of Sony and the corporate execs. As frustrating as times were, it was a great experience to work with him---he has vision to direct and guts to deal with the dirt. (Lol, did I get that from a fortune cookie??)

Near the end of God of War 2, it was definitely time to do something different. I learned from a good friend Charles Lee that Imagi was making "Gatchaman". This was a dream project for me ever since I was a little kid running in the back streets of Taiwan as G1 (the leader of the Gatchaman team), protecting our neighborhood from alien invasion. This old 70's cartoon was called "Battle of the Planets" in the US, or G-Force. I loved it... I got to help envision Gatchaman for our times. I joined Imagi for about a year and a half---worked on some "look of picture" images, but mostly spent time designing the characters. The original vision for the film was fun and a bit edgy---appealed to me. The project's been through lots of changes, rewrites (like any film), ended up with a different director recently. The vision's changed since I first joined, and seems to be going towards a younger Power Rangers audience---I wanted to see a Gatchaman that I would love to see, and didn't want to see it go this direction, so I departed from Imagi and took an Art Directing/Character Designing gig on Thundercats.

Thundercat's is another old cartoon that's making it's way to film...hoooooooo! hehe---sorry, couldn't help myself. The show also made an impression on me as a kid, maybe not quite the way Gatchaman did, but none the less, it took a good chunk of my after school hours. Currently, this is keeping me busy, along with some other projects on the side, which I can't mention yet. I still owe Gnomon some DVD's for their collection, so that's another project that's on my current to-do list. All this to say that I've been slacking on my blogging. Sorry guys, gotta keep the work going...

Attention... Major Goiter!

2007-12-11T02:51:06-08:00

Did this tonite --- just havin' fun getting into character---imagining what Major Goiter has for breakfast, and his morning primping routine in front of the mirror.

He's a native of Hardy, Arkansas, located in the foothills of the Arkansas Ozarks. He grew up with his grandma, 7 half brothers, 6 half sisters, 5 dogs, and 3 cats. His grandma was a regular at the Ozarks shooting range, and often brought Goiter junior with her, where he grew quite fond of shooting at the tadpoles in Spring River. At the ripe age of 35, junior left his Grandma's house to join the marine corp. Currently, he has earned the ranking of Major.

Kratos image work Process

2007-11-28T18:08:47-08:00

I haven't had time to do any painting (except for work stuff) today, so I thought I'd dig around and see if there's anything I could post up. I didn't want to rehash the God of War images, since you're probably tired of those same images by now, but I did find a rare image that I actually saved iterations of the work. This isn't how I work most of the time, but... that seems to change alot! I usually try to work the entire image at once, but in these God of War images, where the main character was crucial to getting legal approval for the image, I focused on him in the initial stages (I think;p it was quite awhile ago). I knew that I wanted my color scheme to be in the warmer tones, so that made it easier to start with color right away. I like going right into color because there's something fresh about the way color also seems to influence my values I choose, rather than starting from black and white. However, in most cases, for concept art, working in black and white first seems to be more efficient, and less distracting for the director to look at---sometimes, color in the concept can be dominating the viewer's senses, and it seems an unfair comparison for concept images unless all the images were also of the same colors and color arrangement.

GNOMON LIVE event Lecture!

2007-11-27T04:23:19-08:00

I'll be doing a lecture at the next GNOMON LIVE event coming up this Saturday. There's alot of good workshops (2D and 3D)--- check out the event with this link:
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/events.html

New Sketch!

2007-11-27T03:44:12-08:00

It's been months since I've posted---sorry for letting this blog grow weeds. I finally finished
another job I've been working on---kind of a second job, so I had some time to paint tonite!
Something fun, and not too concept heavy. Hope you enjoy it!

NINJA Show at NUCLEUS!

2007-08-10T00:32:31-07:00

   August 11 - September 3 , 2007
   Opening Reception Saturday, August 11
   6pm - 11pm

Hey guys, I'll be participating, along with over 50 artists, on a group Ninja show! It should be alot of fun, especially if you come dressed as a Ninja. The opening is this Saturday at the Nucleus gallery in Alhambra, CA. I've been completely swamped lately, so I haven't had time to work on my piece, but
I'm still planning to get a piece in the show by Saturday--- and I'm not going to stay up all nite doing this like the last God of War show, cause I don't want to have to redo most of it the next morning, (lol) so hopefully I can wake up early tomorrow morning and finish this piece before going to work! Hope to see you at the show:]

   -Free Refreshments served
   -Come dressed as a Ninja and receive 15% off all instore merchandise.
   -There will be plenty of door prizes and sponsored give aways
   -There will be a raffle ticket give away

Music:

   Random Ninjas,Gruses, and more to be announced....

   Artists:

Alex Fuentes
   Amy Ortiz
   Andy Park
   Anna Chambers
   Arree Chung
   Aaron Jasinski
   Aya Kondo
   Becky Cloonan
   Ben Kehoe
   Ben Zhu
   Brianne Drouhard
   Charlie Wen
   Chris Appelhans
   Clio Chiang
   Corey Lewis
   Dan Santat
   Daniel Lim
   Darren Quach
   Doug Murphy
   Duskyward
   Edwin Ushiro
   Elizabeth Ito
   Evan B Harris
   Fatoe
   Fiel Valdez
   Frank Stockton
   Israel Sanchez
   Jaime Zollars
   Jake Parker
   Jay Baker
   Jay Horinouchi
   Jim Hsieh
   John Wu
   Jophen Stein
   Jose Lopez

Josh Cochran
   Julie West
   Justin Ridge
   Kazu Kibuishi
   Kevin Dart
   Khang Le
   Kristian Olson
   Louis Gonzales
   Luke Chueh
   Mari Inukai
   Martin Hsu
   Megan Brain
   Mike Lee
   Mizna Wada
   Nate Wragg
   Nathan Fox
   Nathan Huang
   Owlo
   Patrick Haemmerlein
   Patrick Williams
   Patrick Leger
   Peter Vattanatham
   Phil Craven
   Rad Sechrist
   Reece Hobbins
   Robert Kondo
   Scott Campbell
   Scott Seeto
   T & A
   Tanya Philpott
   Tragnark
   Vera Brosgol
   Wilson Swain

   and more...

Siggragh 2007 Demo!

2007-08-07T00:57:09-07:00

Sorry for the short, short, short notice--- but I'll be giving a DEMO the Siggragh Convention in San Diego
this Tuesday @ 11am at the Gnomon booth. If you're going to Siggragh already, hope you can drop by!

NUCLEUS GALLERY (God of War) SHOW

2007-06-04T01:04:38-07:00

Hey guys, I apologize for not responding to anyone or posting anything in a while. I haven't had internet connection for the past month and a half, so it's been difficult keeping up-to-date on my blog. I finally got caught up with the 21st century and got internet at home! I kinda miss tranquil prehistoric days, but I think I could get used to this internet-at-home thing. I should be keeping my blog a bit more updated now... i hope.

Here are some images I did for the God of War show at Nucleus. It was a pretty crazy project, since I was in the middle of messy moving situation, I didn't get started on the images until a couple days before the due date---I didn't get to sleep much during the time. Have you ever worked 'til the weee hours of the morning, rather pleased with yourself on your progress, only to wake up discovering that someone had vandelized your beautiful artwork--- only to realize a moment later that you did it yourself while in a state of narcosis due to sleep deprivation? hehe, that happened--- should have just gone to sleep...

Not sure if you got to check out the show, but I heard it was rediculous! The line went down the street around the corner at some point. Wish I could have made it---I had a previous engagement in Japan--- definitely not compainin' though-- it was an amazing trip--- took lots of pics, ate a ton and a half of sushi and sashimi, had my first experience with sumo, and lost my wallet---pretty full experience:] I'll post some pics as soon as I organize them a bit.

These images were based after first and second Kings in the old testament. I hope to do a graphic novel on it at some point--some great characters and events to illustrate on that era. I thought the gallery show would be a perfect time to start getting my feet wet on the subject matter---not sure of style or anything yet. Hope you enjoy them!

You can check out some pics of the show on nucleus' blog at:

http://www.gallerynucleus.com/default.php?sitepage=blog&PHPSESSID=a080340ed29463a53851a7247d8c6b78

UnUsed Book Cover Sketches

2007-04-18T00:58:52-07:00

These were some sketches I did for a book series that eventually weren't used, so I figure I can at least show them on my blog! ;] It was for a re-release of a series of novels featuring the adventurers "Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser". I believe Mike Mignola did some covers for the graphic novel version of these for Dark Horse. I was told these adventure stories were almost as popular as LOTR by Tolkien at one point. I'd never heard of them before working on it, so it must not have had the life-span that The Lord of the Rings has had--- I skimmed through some of the books in order to do the sketches, but didn't get hooked on the writing. Anyone read these books before?